1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of digital media content monitoring. More specifically, the invention comprises a way to detect connection parameter changes in a broadcast and uses this information to correct digital media receivers when a predetermined channel or stream has a lineup change.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are many ways in which the contents of digital media streams are monitored. For the purposes of this invention, content monitoring refers to the contents of a digital media stream which include one or more of the following: audio, video, digital metadata, and subtitle/closed caption. Frequently content monitoring is done on television programming. Some of the reasons this content is monitored include:                Automatic Content Recognition (ACR)—This technology is commonly subcategorized as “watermarking” or “fingerprinting” technology. Watermarking techniques change the audio or video in a stream before it is broadcasted by putting a unique, hidden “watermark” on it which can be recognized by computers later. Fingerprinting techniques process audio or video to generate unique reference “fingerprints” without changing the data. Each fingerprint is based on the unique audio, video, subtitles, caption or metadata in the stream so that other copies of this data can be recognized by software referencing these fingerprints later. ACR technology is used for:                    Rights management (confirming that a TV station is paying the royalties for the content it displays, etc.).            Software Applications on Smart TVs, tablets, smartphones and other devices                            these applications can detect what content is playing and allow an interactive experience. For example: users can vote or play trivia games that are related and synced to the content as it is broadcast.                                    TV Ratings—watermarks on audio or video are read to confirm that a program that aired is the same as the scheduled program. Also, some programs have “fingerprints” taken to offer an alternate system to reading watermarks.            Advertisement verification—Counting the number of occurrences with time stamps when an advertisement is played. This allows a TV or radio station to prove that advertisements were aired. It also allows advertisers to audit TV or radio stations and verify that purchased advertisements ran.                        Broadcast Monitoring—This technology usually consists of recording content, usually for public relations purposes. For example, if a touring politician wants to know what the local news said about him, he may query a broadcast monitoring database to find transcripts and audio/video clips. Similarly, an organization's public relations department may want to know what news stories have been reported about them recently and do a similar search.        
These and other applications have created a demand for content monitoring systems. Content monitoring, especially in cable TV, comes with many challenges. Most cable providers prefer that provider owned receivers are rented as opposed to allowing users to provide user owned hardware. It is well known in this industry that most cable TV receivers are highly unreliable when running constantly. This causes high maintenance costs and excessive down time. Cable TV providers commonly cause problems with cable TV receivers by changing the channel lineup. When this occurs the receiver needs to be manually re-tuned to locate the updated broadcast. Because of these reliability problems with cable TV receivers, there is demand for a reliable system that can hand off cable TV data to monitoring servers. Note that currently satellite and over-the-air, signals and receivers are usually more reliable than cable signals and receivers and are more popular when they can be used. Cable providers are required by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allow end users to rent cablecards and insert them into end user owned receivers that support cablecard. This allows cable TV users to make their own receivers work with the cable TV provider's system. Some cablecard devices allow for remote management by users which allows monitoring and remote management of these receivers when they are used for content monitoring.